The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

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Calla Lily

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Welcome to the new volume! Quoting the OP from Volume 1 to kick things off:
Hi. I'm Devil and I'm a reject. It has been 11 hours since my last rejection.

I am learning to live with rejection because rejection means I'm querying, and querying is something I avoided for a very long time. I've managed to double my number of rejections in just two weeks. I did that by increasing the number of queries I'd sent by six times.

My goal is to land an agent in under 200 queries.

It would be nice to know that I'm not alone in rejection. If you were rejected today, please post here.

Thank you for flying AW Air.
 

krashnburn

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I have nothing to say--just wanted to be first and start us off with a :banana: for good luck!
 

Hathor

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I'm feeling so special now. I wasn't alert enough to get the 20,000th post in Vol. I or the first new one here. Guess I need to wait and try to hit the 30,000th one.
 

WendyN

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Ooooh, exciting. New week, new month, new thread!
smilie_tier_280.gif



BTW, Hathor, I did assume that the game ended at some point (although with baseball, really, who knows?) We grilled out and then I had some reading to finish up before book club tomorrow.
 
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noranne

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A new thread?! Woohoo!

My race went really well this morning, thanks for the cheers! I ran 1:56, which is a PR for me and my goal was sub-2:00 so yay. Now to try to refocus on my writing...tomorrow... :)
 

Nova Odyssey

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I feel like I survived the Daily Rejection apocalypse. We're incarnated in volume 2? I second, where are we?...
 

Funaek

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Yay new thread!

Sigh, form R on a Sunday.

Debating whether to go through the effort of coming up with tweets for pitmad, or just focus on my current WIP while my completed one is out in queryland.

Good luck to everyone next week!
 

Hathor

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Sorry about the R, Funaek :Hug2:

Nothing from agents for me recently. I did have a random person retweet a pitch I had way back in PitchMAS. I've yet to figure out why people do this. :Shrug:

Well, it's one more read-through for my R&R draft. Yesterday's read generated a few word changes and one tiny plot discontinuity to fix (only had to delete two words). I hope today will be different -- smooth sailing with no "how could I not notice this before?" moments.

And I hope we get some good news on our shiny new thread. So who's going to get the first dancing banana here?
 

Nova Odyssey

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Sorry, Funaek...
No bananas from me. I'm almost done my first read of R & R, discovering things like it's Saturday on one page, the next page I mention it's Friday. A class begins in the middle of October instead of September... I'll be happier when I do a printed read as I can't really take my book seriously reading it on screen. And smooth sailing, Hathor? that's actually the type of wording I've been studying this morning. parts of a ship and sails.
happy Monday, everyone.
 

HoldinHolden

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Thought you could get rid of me that easily, eh? ;) Here's to a positive week full of YES! I still have blog block and a buttload of editing to do. Good times!
 

Funaek

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Decided to put in a few tweets for pitmad. Not going to flood my twitter feed with two every hour (I have mostly dog followers on my twitter account), but will throw in some for my MG that I'm querying and the PB I queried a bit last year. I've scheduled my tweets and plan to just forget about it until I check in later in the day on Thursday (Ha, yeah right! I'll probably be checking compulsively).
 

Moonchild

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Holy molly... I'm gone two days and I come back to a closed thread and a brand new hang-out, complete with bits of inaugural ribbon and Grand Opening confetti still littering the floor... So this is what happens when I'm not looking, huh? ;)

Sooo much to catch up on! From the final pages of the previous thread to the humble beginnings of the new one:

HoldinHolden - You've already gotten awesome thoughts on POV, but because I can :greenie, I'll add my two cents:

For me, it totally depends on the book. I do find it easier to nail voice in 1st person POV, but I do find it limiting, because there's usually a lot of other stuff happening behind the scenes that the narrator/MC is not necessarily aware of, and sometimes I have a hard time weaving it in later in a way that it doesn't end up sounding like a massive info dump, or like I'm saying, "Here, have some exposition now!" It can totally be done, though. I personally just find it a little tricky.

On the other side of the spectrum, I find omni way too distant and very, very hard to do well. I think the most flexible POV, IMO, is third limited with 1 -4 POV characters throughout a book, but I always avoid the dreaded head-hopping by never switching POV in the same scene. Mostly, I like alternating chapters.

Mind you, at the end of the day, in my case, it really depends on the book. For the current WIP, I started writing in 1st person, but I realized about a week ago that the story may well need dual POV. I probably will still keep it in 1st person, but it'll be two alternating voices. If I go that way. I haven't entirely sussed it out... :Shrug: (I'm chicken: I find dual POV in 1st person very hard because you need to work a lot to keep your narrators' voices distinct from one another... So I'll see if I can get myself out of that one... I'm still hopeful...)

Roxxs - Sorry about the R on that short! Here's hoping the timing of the R is providential and that it means that you must submit to that other dream magazine and that you'll get an acceptance! :) We're rooting for you! :Hug2:

noranne - I'm with Wendy here: I'd totally count that as a partial! Yay! :snoopy: I think if she was rejecting you, she would have said so. As it is, it sounds more like she's warning you that it'll likely be a while before she can get to your material, but that she's interested anyway. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

RaggedEdge - Welcome back!

Nova, Hathor and Wendy - you slay those revisions! You go girls!!!! :e2cheer:

Hathor - I agree with CCC and Liz (not that I have any personal experience with that): maybe send the MS back to the agent when you're ready describing your changes and how they relate to her suggestions/requests? And I wouldn't say anything about the additional language polishing, unless she specifically requested that. But that might be just me. :Shrug:

Australian River - I edit by reading the manuscript in my head, also! Not in David Attenborough's voice, though. In Morgan Freeman's sometimes, and sometimes in Meryl Streep's. :ROFL:

Wendy - I hope you saved some meringues for us... I woke up to another R (on query only) this morning. Sigh. :(

Funaek - Sorry about the R! :Hug2: Just in case Wendy didn't save any meringues for us, here's a peanut butter cookie for you! Also, I'm in the same boat on the whole #pitmad thing. I might throw my hat in and tweet once or twice, because why not? But I really have no expectations.

Anyhoo... Here's hoping everyone had a nice weekend and that this week brings us all good news, darn it! Getting tired of lameness and silence and Rs in my inbox! :(
 
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WendyN

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HAPPY JUNE!!!!!


I love, love, LOVE new months and having a new calendar with none of the days crossed off yet and so much potential for awesomeness. And I finished my read-through of WIP and sent it off to betas (yikes!) so now I can focus my attention on short stories and brainstorming for what I want to write for Camp NaNo next month.


Nora - Congrats on the awesome race!
smiley_running_.gif



Consolation meringues for everyone who needs them. As for me, I've had a quiet inbox the past few days. Hoping everyone comes back from BEA with a renewed vigor for the publishing industry and ready to take on some awesome new projects!
 

Jeneral

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Crickets, crickets. Lots and lots of crickets.

I'm doing PitMad, but I'm not anticipating much from it. At this point I kind of want to concentrate on my WIP, so after PitMad I'll put the current book in a drawer for now. Not really giving up on it, just giving it a break.

I'm also going to my first RWA meeting this coming weekend. Now THAT I am very excited about. I have a local writer's group, but it's mostly a couple of people who do nothing but post writing memes on our group's Facebook page. I tried to start conversation about what we're actually working on, sharing my progress, etc., and mostly got crickets. Then I went to an out of town workshop put on by a local RWA chapter and got SO INSPIRED, just being around other people who are Making it Happen, be it through self-publishing or through agents or small presses. So we'll see how that goes.

Funaek - really? An R on a Sunday? That's just dumb.

Cookies for everyone, and I'm loving the new shiny room. Not sure about these curtains though. I may need to replace those.
 

Funaek

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Thanks for the meringue and the peanut butter cookies Wendy and Moonchild!

Jeneral - I know, the R on a Sunday sucked. But, I'd rather have a response than nothing. I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I'm focusing on my WIP, which I'm really liking (though having a hard time getting the first draft done). I'll also do PitMad, wait to see how my current queries go and then I'll put that book aside for now.

Noranne - congrats on the race!!
 

Hathor

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Sorry about the R, Moonchild. Even the best of us get them LOL (Yeah, one popped up in my inbox this morning.)

Just finished my R&R draft. I've sent it out to Wendy for a quick read-through focused on my changes. If anyone else who's seen an earlier version is free to take a look, PM me. I think it would be difficult for someone who hasn't read the story before to have the rapid turn around I hope for. Other than small added passages and lots of tweaks here and there, I've only changed a plot element in one chapter and had a major rewrite of the heroes' rescue/abduction attempt.

And now to escape from the underworld myself for a few days. I'm not sure what kind of goody an R&R completion calls for. I'll take whatever you have.
 

Moonchild

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Hathor - Yay on finishing the R&R!!! :hooray:How about a boozy baked good of some sort? Rum cake from Grand Cayman, maybe? And thanks for the commiseration on the R. Just got another one a minute ago. Getting used to them. All I want is to hear from the people who have fulls and partials. And I want GOOD NEWS, dammit!

Ahem...

So, yeah... Rum cake it is...
 
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RaggedEdge

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I'm going to squeak into the first page of new volume! I feel like a legend now.

Going to sit back and relish that for now... (and quickly hit send before someone else does!)

ETA: Now that I'm here, I'll just say CONGRATS to Nora on beating a personal record! Woo-hoo!
 
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ChocolateChipCookie

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Good job on finishing the R & R, Hathor.

Sorry for R's already in this new thread. And Moonchild, please pass some of that rum cake. Yesterday I made homemade chocolate pudding and it came out fabulous! It's a recipe from theKitchn.com website by Faith Durand.

Pudding for everyone!
 
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